Monday 8 September 2008

CCK08 and data overload calmness


Today the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course is starting and up until now 1900 worldwide participants signed up. Due to this huge interest most of my time yesterday was spend on getting to know other participants through the 'introduction forum' on Moodle. I was too eager, too interested, too neurotic... adding up to 3 hours of frantic reading of short bio's and ideas on why people are interested in the course.


I know I should not get all anxious about data overload, nor should I want to read everything... I (we) no longer can, but still I did get overexcited. Luckily Stephen Downes send a soothing mail (in the Daily newsletter the course is using to keep the learners on track). In this mail he anticipates on the anxiety and assures the learners that not reading everything and/ or limited absorption of all that will be posted is ok. I needed this extra confirmation, but still I wonder if I can keep my neurotic 'I want to know everything' under control.
So I gather that the new world knowledge order is quite simple: "Chill, whatever you choose to learn will be okay, relax and absorb what you want", but planning your knowledge path could be a benefit if you want to achieve a certain knowledge goal.

Just wondering if existential crisis's on what knowledge to absorb will be the new personality crisis of the future?

3 comments:

  1. Hi, Ignatia,

    I'm part of a group of educators who co-moderate free online training through the Electronic Village Online every year, and we say that this is "FOMS" syndrome, Fear of Missing Something! We all need to learn how to manage this information overload, maybe by establishing what your goals are for the new digital spots we venture ourselves in. Do we want to do all the readings, post a lot, or do we want to focus on the relationships, comments, etc? There's no easy answer, but I surely need to determine what my goal will be for this Connectivism course as I'm totally overwhelmed with work, but still suffer from FOMS!

    Cheers from a Brazilian educator in Key West.

    Carla
    http://explorations.bloxi.jp

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  2. hi Carla
    Nice to be able to put a name on it :-)

    I have the same problem with work at this moment, so feeling a little bit frustrated and caught between a rock and a hard place. Nevertheless it keeps me thinking.
    Thank you for adding the Electronic Village link, I had not heard from it and it looks very stimulating. Great blog as well!
    cheers

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  3. Hi, Ignatia,

    I'm still suffering from "FOMS", but trying to focus on my goals for this course.

    As for the Electronic Village Online, we're in the period of accepting proposals for next year's sessions. They will be held in Jan-Feb2009. I'll let you know. It's a fantastic international get-together of educators willing to learn.

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